It’s Monday 10th July.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Joe Biden is in Europe this week, starting in the UK on Monday where he will meet King Charles for the first time since his coronation, as well as the PM. 

Potus will be at the NATO Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Elsewhere… 

Monday: the Mansion House dinner 

The Lucy Letby murder trial could be coming to a close, with the jury due to begin deliberations .

Tuesday: Amazon workers in Coventry hold Prime Day strike.

Wednesday: London premiere for the Barbie movie.

Thursday: Junior doctors in England begin five-day strike.

Friday: Report on whether Diet Coke sweetener aspartame should be declared a carcinogen. 

Media comings-and goings…

Kate McCann moves from Talk TV to Times Radio – she’s their new Political Editor.

Christopher Hope leaves The Telegraph to join GB News. His last story was – predictably – about a new royal yacht, a subject he returns to with frightening regularity.

And Debbie Ramsay is the new editor of Channel 5 News

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

K is for Knighthood:

So it’s Professor Dame (insert surname) right? A tad complicated but producers are bright enough to cope with protocol and you should always be introduced in the way you wish. Audiences like to hear from people who’ve earned their spurs and achieved their doctorate or have gained seniority as a Director of a project, become a CEO or have been appointed Head Of Operations. It’s especially important in a challenging situation – it shows the organisation is taking the issue seriously and is fielding a senior spokesperson.

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Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland harbour, New Zealand on this day in 1985.

Highs of 21 degrees in Exeter today and 20 in Cardiff.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…

Back on Monday. Have a lovely week.



Team Inside Edge

Starting this week with a simple question. Is this news?

It’s Monday 3rd July. (Where did June go?)

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: High Court hearing continues in Cabinet Office challenge to Covid-19 inquiry

Wimbledon starts

Tuesday: Rishi Sunak makes his third appearance before the Liaison Committee 

Wednesday: Westminster Abbey service marking 75th anniversary of the NHS 

Thursday: Rare Rembrandt portraits auctioned at Christie’s 

World Artificial Intelligence Conference opens in Shanghai 

Friday: UK Athletics Championships 

A nugget about headline writing from a Times interview with Poldark star Aidan Turner… 

“What’s different now, what is perhaps a post-2015 thing, is people saying things that are baldly untrue: barefaced, to your face, they will tell you stuff that isn’t true. And they will say it in a very convinced way.”

Krishnan Guru-Murthy on 25 years at Channel 4 News

READ MORE 

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

J is for Jokes:

Some of our delegates are worried they won’t be sparky enough and look to comedy as a way of brightening up their delivery. It is a dangerous path. Some jokes will simply fall flat. At other times it might make you appear flippant on a subject which some people might be taking very seriously. Then there’s the hazard of pre–records where subsequent editing might remove the necessary context to the one liner. Leave the funnies to stand up pros – you will be sparky enough if you’ve worked on compelling content.

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And speaking of jokes…

Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons recently questioned what the Yes Minister characters Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey would have made of the current glut of political podcasts. It’s worth quoting in full, because it’s actually genuinely funny for a politician…

“Bloomberg UK Politics is listened to by people that own the country. Politicial Thinking is listened to by people who run the country. The Rest is Politics is produced by people who failed at running the country, Women With Balls is listened to people who should be running the country. And Chopper’s podcast is listened to by people who think the country should have a royal yacht.

Newscast is watched by people who love the BBC, Coffee House by people who hate the BBC, and The News Agents by people who used to work for it…

We are blessed with a plethora of media outlets, but it does get confusing.”

And for context, here’s the glorious original…

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

Jim Morrison, the lead singer of American rock group The Doors died of heart failure in Paris, aged 27 on this day in 1971.

Highs of 15 degrees in Grasmere today and 19 in Portsmouth.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…

Back on Monday. Have a lovely week.



Team Inside Edge

“Oh come on, we’re not gonna start there, we’re not gonna start on misconduct…”

Train wreck interview number 1 from Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, desperately keen to talk about a lick of paint for a police station and rather less keen to talk about systemic problems in his force. 

According to ITV News reporter Sam Holder, “We were told we could ask anything. However that turned out not to be the case.”

WATCH HERE

It’s Monday 26 June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: Hajj begins 

Tuesday: Launch window opens for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight

RCN strike ballot result expected

Wednesday: Kevin Spacey stands trial on a string of sexual assault charges

Second men’s Ashes test begins

Thursday: (and Friday) EU Leaders Summit 

Friday: The government’s attempt to block its own inquiry from accessing Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages is heard at the High Court

Saturday: London and Madrid Pride rallies



UK assumes presidency of the UN Security Council

“I don’t feel that I’m prepared at all for this, Ami. And it’s all getting a little bit above my station, sorry.”

Train wreck interview number 2 from Lib Dem candidate for Somerton and Frome Sarah Dyke for the Guardian politics podcast. Asked about deprivation in the area she said she’d drunk her coffee a bit too fast, before asking “what do you want to know?”

Enter stage left Ami (the aforementioned Lib Dem press officer) who suggests getting the candidate a glass of water before the interview is terminated. 

LISTEN HERE (12 minutes in)

Rare Shameless Plug…

I was asked to run a series of half day sessions on Pitching to Journalists last week. We gathered insights from a wide range of senior producers and print editors and there are some terrific tips. It works well for small or big groups, online or in-person. As you know the MMB is never about plugging stuff, but we put a lot of work into it and are proud of the result, so if you’d like more info give us a shout. 

(CNN’s Media Correspondent Oliver Darcy on the extraordinary events in Russia this weekend…)

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

I is for Indent:

There is no “right” length to an interview answer but it might be helpful to visualise your wording as if it was laid out on a page. A paragraph should embody a single thought so a few sentences is a pretty good baseline for an answer that allows you to get in to a bit of substance but is also digestible for the presenter and audience. Expand on some responses; be sharper with others. Variety is good. A para that last a whole page is never good – so edit yourself or you will be interrupted.

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BBC Breakfast proudly unveils its new studio. Which looks strikingly similar to the old one…

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

“Ich bin ein Berliner.” JFK made his ground-breaking speech in Berlin offering American solidarity to the citizens of West Germany on this day in 1963. 120,000 Berliners gathered to hear the President speak.

Highs of 23 degrees in London today and 20 in Newcastle.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…lazy sunny days

Back on Monday. Have a super week.



Team Inside Edge

“Uxbridge residents stick by Boris Johnson despite Partygate report.”

How many doom-scrollers read this tweet from BBC Politics and didn’t bother clicking on the link? 

Me, for one.

You might reasonably conclude the BBC had commissioned some polling, particularly ahead of a crucial by-election. 

Wrong.

It turns out the link takes you to a write-up of a glorified vox pop, speaking to the grand total of…just let me get my calculator out here…6 people. (And one of those is actually “shaking with anger” at his contempt for the former PM.)

As polling expert Dr Will Jennings observes, “Vox pops are not a reliable tool for ascertaining voting intentions. Just think about the unrepresentativeness of who you might find to interview on a high street on a weekday. Pollsters were grappling with methodological challenges of where interviews are conducted 70 years ago.” 

I hate vox pops anyway. I hated them as a producer and I hate them now. But to grandly state that “Uxbridge residents stick by Boris Johnson” after speaking to the 6 people who could be bothered to stop and talk to the reporter is unforgivable.

READ MORE

It’s Monday 19th June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: David Cameron becomes the first politician to appear before the Covid-19 inquiry

Tuesday: Campsfield migrant centre planning decision due

Wednesday:  Latest inflation figures 

PM hosts the Ukraine Recovery Conference (and Thursday)

Thursday: Bank of England interest rate decision 

Friday: RCN ballot closes for nurses’ strike mandate

Seven years ago: UK held referendum on EU membership

Saturday: General election in Sierra Leone

The Reuters Digital News report for 2023 claims to reveal the 10 biggest news podcasts in the UK. 

(Note these aren’t necessarily the most-listened to. According to Reuters’ Nic Newman, “we use online survey methodologies to identify some of the most popular news podcasts.”)

Anyway, here are the runners and riders:

1. The Rest Is Politics
2. Newscast 
3. The News Agents 
4. Americast
5. Today In Focus (The Guardian) 
6. Ukrainecast 
7. The New Statesman Podcast 
8. Joe Rogan Experience
9. The Trawl 
10. Oh God, What Now? 

75% of podcast hosts of top-mentioned shows are men. 31% come from the BBC. 

READ MORE

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

H is for Heritage:

A word that has associations of Tudor piles and gothic churches for many – but not for some scientists. It can mean to researchers the background and history of investigations in a particular field. And there lies the problem. A mass media audience does not have time in the flow of an interview to work out what you mean. So healthcheck your terms – is there ambiguity? If so, explain it – or find another way of describing what matters.

READ MORE

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

An inquest jury decided Lord Lucan did murder the 29-year-old nanny of his three young children on this day in 1975.

Highs of 22 degrees in Liverpool today and 20 in Swansea.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…

Back on Monday. Have a good week.



Team Inside Edge